anonemouse

That's not what I was asking you about. I was asking if you recognized the hypocrisy in branding all feminists because a few may have some wacky ideas but getting pissed whenever we talk about wackjob Christians because you say we are basically belittling ALL Christians when we do that. I guess I can say that all Christians believe that gays should all die of AIDS and that they think that 9/11 happened because women in this country have abortions and the gays have "homo-fied" our kids. After all, there are Christians out there that believe that, so all Christians must believe that.

I honestly believe that in a generation or two, gay rights will be viewed in the same way as we view racial minority rights today. Our kids and grandkids will look back on today's world, and wonder about the multitude of absolute bigots that were able to squash the rights of an entire group of people, and were able to defend and excuse their behavior and beliefs by saying that "it's what God would have wanted" or "that's the way the Bible says it should be". I just wish I lived in that time.

And yet you always get your dander up whenever anyone else stereotypes all Christians by the behavior of a few. Don't you see the hypocrisy here?

Citing a 40 year-old book does not mean that feminists today are encouraging people to get pregnant and have abortions just for the experience. We can go back and forth all day, citing instances where, years ago, certain groups encouraged behavior that we don't consider to be appropriate today. Including Christians. Does that mean that anyone believes that way today? No, and you know that.

Most people are!

Um, pro-gun in the above post, not pro-gin. Damned smiley-faces when I try to edit!

You know, pro-gin rights groups are always citing instances where a gun owner was able to protect themselves, but I wonder if anyone has analyzed the statistical probability of an instance occuring where they would need to protect themselves with a gun (where no other way of protection was available - no alarm, etc.) versus the probability that they would accidentally injure themselves or someone else with said gun. In other words, are they more likely to need the gun to protect themselves or are they more likely to have an accident with it? It would be interesting to find out.

Thanks, Susannah! I just wish I could get Gailannr to answer my questions. Oh well, she can't expect someone to change if she won't explain why she's bitching.

Here's another one: www.prochoice.org

And a DNR isn't allowing someone to be killed. It's allowing them to die.

That's true. But what about if it was one of your children? They don't have any choice about whether or not you make that decision for them.

Well, hell, the whole idea is hypothetical, isn't it? Does it matter that a hypothetical situation is against the Hippocratic oath? It's not like the situation is likely to happen in real life, is it? Maybe you think it should, but it doesn't. And it isn't "absent of arbitrary criteria". Do you consider life to be the presence of a heart beat or the ability to sustain a heartbeat? There are lots of criteria like those that you have to consider.

Sometimes, we have to make hard decisions. The results may make us feel horrible and crappy, but what we should be thinking about are the people that those decisions impact, not how those decisions make us feel. Are they free of pain? I consider it morally bankrupt to keep someone in pain just so that we don't have to make a hard, heart breaking decision.

To me, that's horrible. If my loved one was in horrible pain, I would hope that I would give them at least the same respect that I'd give my pet, and not allow them to suffer just so that it would make me feel better. Most of us consider it to be disgusting when people keep their pets alive long past the point where they have a life worth living. Why don't we think that for our loved ones? All it does is cause them more pain.

It doesn't work that way.

Exactly. Deciding to euthanize a child that is a vegetable or is living in excruciating pain is a medical decision. And it is entirely different than an unneeded amputation. It would bring you joy to watch your children go through excruciating, unmanageable pain? I can understand your position if the child we are discussing had Down's Syndrome or was severely autistic. But what if your child was completely unresponsive, except for pain. All they could do was lay in a hospital bed and feel pain. Would they bring you joy then? What about what they feel? When does their right to be free of pain override your right to keep them in this world? When their quality of life drops so low as to be nonexistant, don't they have the right to pass from this world painlessly? Or would you be so selfish as to keep them in constant pain, just so that you can say that you are pro-life?

But there is no set definition of when life begins. Really? I hope you are anti-death penalty, then. We make this decision all the time. When we go to war, we decide that someone must die. When we sentence someone to death, we decide that someone must die. When we sign a DNR, we decide that someone must die (or at least, that they shouldn't live).

Which brings us back to my statement that his community needs to harass it's leaders into hiring more police. It still makes no sense that they have only 3 policemen per shift when they have such a high crime rate. And my statement about moving was meant to be a comparison of how we tend to view this surgery and how we view our personal safety. Many people say that if they had to, they would take out loans, sell their property, do whatever they had to to have this surgery. Why don't they feel that way about their personal safety?

I've been experiencing problems when trying to edit posts. The edit box is always full of little yellow smiley-faces.

Actually, medically, we do own our children, so to speak. Until they are 18, parents make medical decisions for their children (with the exception of reproduction). That's why parents don't have to fill out lots of legal paperwork if they want the ability to make medical decisions for their children. They already have that right. Yes, it is, but it also gives a pretty clear idea as to what he considers "defective". I'd hope that you wouldn't consider your children to be causing you suffering. What you have to look at, though, is whether there is more suffering than happiness.

Even a highly psychotic parent has the right to decide, if they have custody of the child or person in question. It isn't like they would be allowed to decide if a perfectly healthy newborn would live or die. Given the fact that it is a highly controversial opinion, I'm sure he's justified his opinion. While he may not have in the quote you gave, doesn't mean that he hasn't in other statements.

And you don't KNOW that that isn't what Singer means. That's why I said it should be up to the families and that it shouldn't be mandatory.

And by the way, it may be more of a function of the fact that I haven't had a lot of time lately to be here. The last couple of weeks have been a tad stressful.

Actually, no. I just haven't found anyone that needed to be educated about certain issues. And what was I blathering about, anyway? You never answered me in the other thread. Was it me talking about doing my thesis, or was it me debating evolution and other ideas with people what didn't know a heck of a lot about the topics?

Am I saying that the euthanasia of these infants and people should be mandatory? Hell, no. But it should be an option. To me, it's more morally suspect to force these families to keep their children that are experiencing extreme pain or are vegetables alive than it is to allow them to have them humanely euthanized. If it were your child, would you want to put it through extreme pain for the rest of his or her life, never to leave a hospital?